This paper is written as requirement for the course FILM 220, Advanced Film Documentary under Prof. Rhoel Jamon, MA
An interesting point depicted in the film The Day After Tomorrow (Emmerich, 2004) is the mistaken prediction of climatologist Jack Hall (played by Dennis Quaid) in the possible occurrence of the massive drop in water temperature that would cause the meltdown of polar ice caps that will cause disruption of the North Atlantic current. His initial prediction indicates that the event would occur hundreds or even thousand of years in the future but as he speaks, news on two buoys in the North Atlantic experiencing temperature drops has started circumnavigating, and then follows a super storm that will cause massive destruction across the world. We can view this “prediction gone wrong scenario” an alarming stance to show viewers the possibility of a catastrophe happening without warnings, with respect to the issues of global warming and climate changes, but I found this more of an issue pertaining to a “what if” form of question: what if our scientists don’t actually know what they are doing? Or in a less harsh note: what if scientists can’t do it right?
While I didn’t formulate the question above to contest the integrity of our meteorologists and climatologists, I raised it to incorporate the angle of science that is depicted in the Emmerich’s film. Placing the revelation of Jack Hall’s inaccuracy of data in the earlier portion directs the role of science in the problem. Provided the commoners could have learned on the issues with precision they could have at least done something to protect themselves. The film had (un)consciously put scientists accountable of the problem for misinforming people, without digging deeper on the contribution of ordinary people to the problem. In the contrary, that makes Day After Tomorrow exciting, as it placed its characters in the most unforgiving and unpredictable climatic event to mankind. In one angle, the film has been successful in making an exciting fiction film that was probably made more to entertain than to educate, while capitalizing on the effects of global warming that had probably sent special effects makers and animators harrumphing on their workstations, making the most of their time submerging the Statue of Liberty in ice and filling the city with floods.
Day After Tomorrow shares the typical characteristics of disaster films like Poseidon Adventure (1972), Twister (1995) and Armageddon (1998): multiple plotlines, survival attempts of characters and the showcase of the aftermath. At closer look, the film didn’t actually center even on the effects of global warming and climate change per se, but emphasizes on the characters’ struggles for survival (plus an attempt to spark romance between two other main characters played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Emmy Rossum), making global warming as a back draft. In fact, the issue of global warming wasn’t really tackled in profundity.
The film, An Inconvenient Truth (Guggenheim, 2006) spent most of its duration in the slideshows of former Vice President Al Gore on global warming, the film has managed to tackle on the issue in depth. I raised the issue of science’s role as depicted in Day After Tomorrow and was surprised on how Gore revealed that scientists were forced to silence because the fact “had led them to an inconvenient truth” in terms of politics and economics, stating this inconvenience as reason why the issue on global warming isn’t being tackled as serious as it deserves to be.
Gore presented on his slideshows his thesis stating that global warming is real, and has provided studies to support his thesis, including an atmospheric record that reveals that the ten hottest years ever since 1880 have all happened in the last fourteen years and before-after photographs of retreat of glaciers (e.g. Lake Kilimanjaro and glaciers in Argentina and Chile). He also presented how humans have significantly contributed to global warming, citing the increase of carbon dioxide that results to higher temperatures, as brought by emissions from technological inventions that risk the environment in an effort to further innovation. As reflected in the preceding paragraph, Gore indicated that skeptics on global warming act like as if nothing’s happening because it’s inconvenient to embrace the truth. He categorized this more as an moral issue and stated that if we allow the effects of global warming to happen, then it is deeply unethical.
Future is much of concern in An Inconvenient Truth, as much as it is the concern of Al Gore as a person. The film interweaved Gore’s lectures into tidbits of his lives that direct to the issue he’s been tackling: his childhood, his education, his position in the government. In closer look, the film tackles more on the sub-textual disappointment wrapped around Gore’s mission to educate as he recounts himself how many thousands of times he has done the slideshows with the hopes of changing enough minds to treat global warming seriously. The film depicts Gore’s passion as it tries to open doors for possible re-understanding on the issue.
The two films’ take on the effects of global warming is related but differently portrayed. Although Day After Tomorrow has presented a possible scenery in the future, setting it’s milieu in present time makes the film’s science aspect incongruous, not even fitting the facts that was presented in An Inconvenient Truth. Global warming does posit a possibility of temperature drops and climate changes but these don’t happen in as abrupt as they were presented in Day After Tomorrow. Al Gore’s lecture on the effects of global warming is based very much on scientific findings, with much emphasis on a gradual climate change (yet is obviously happening in a faster rate as compared to decades and hundred of years back). Day’s use of science fiction leads to literal fictionalizing of available science and exaggerating facts to fit the formula of what’s exciting and visually impressive, aligning itself to what a disaster movie should be like.
In An Inconvenient Truth, Gore stated that people should know how to react when the leading scientists of the world have already aired a warning on the possible dangers. It quite affirmed my earlier observation that Day’s could pose as a critique against the scientists’ role in the worldwide calamity. Or in another possible note, is this just the filmmaker’s way of masking himself on his ignorance on science to excuse himself in making a possible blockbuster hit?
An interesting point depicted in the film The Day After Tomorrow (Emmerich, 2004) is the mistaken prediction of climatologist Jack Hall (played by Dennis Quaid) in the possible occurrence of the massive drop in water temperature that would cause the meltdown of polar ice caps that will cause disruption of the North Atlantic current. His initial prediction indicates that the event would occur hundreds or even thousand of years in the future but as he speaks, news on two buoys in the North Atlantic experiencing temperature drops has started circumnavigating, and then follows a super storm that will cause massive destruction across the world. We can view this “prediction gone wrong scenario” an alarming stance to show viewers the possibility of a catastrophe happening without warnings, with respect to the issues of global warming and climate changes, but I found this more of an issue pertaining to a “what if” form of question: what if our scientists don’t actually know what they are doing? Or in a less harsh note: what if scientists can’t do it right?
While I didn’t formulate the question above to contest the integrity of our meteorologists and climatologists, I raised it to incorporate the angle of science that is depicted in the Emmerich’s film. Placing the revelation of Jack Hall’s inaccuracy of data in the earlier portion directs the role of science in the problem. Provided the commoners could have learned on the issues with precision they could have at least done something to protect themselves. The film had (un)consciously put scientists accountable of the problem for misinforming people, without digging deeper on the contribution of ordinary people to the problem. In the contrary, that makes Day After Tomorrow exciting, as it placed its characters in the most unforgiving and unpredictable climatic event to mankind. In one angle, the film has been successful in making an exciting fiction film that was probably made more to entertain than to educate, while capitalizing on the effects of global warming that had probably sent special effects makers and animators harrumphing on their workstations, making the most of their time submerging the Statue of Liberty in ice and filling the city with floods.
Day After Tomorrow shares the typical characteristics of disaster films like Poseidon Adventure (1972), Twister (1995) and Armageddon (1998): multiple plotlines, survival attempts of characters and the showcase of the aftermath. At closer look, the film didn’t actually center even on the effects of global warming and climate change per se, but emphasizes on the characters’ struggles for survival (plus an attempt to spark romance between two other main characters played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Emmy Rossum), making global warming as a back draft. In fact, the issue of global warming wasn’t really tackled in profundity.
The film, An Inconvenient Truth (Guggenheim, 2006) spent most of its duration in the slideshows of former Vice President Al Gore on global warming, the film has managed to tackle on the issue in depth. I raised the issue of science’s role as depicted in Day After Tomorrow and was surprised on how Gore revealed that scientists were forced to silence because the fact “had led them to an inconvenient truth” in terms of politics and economics, stating this inconvenience as reason why the issue on global warming isn’t being tackled as serious as it deserves to be.
Gore presented on his slideshows his thesis stating that global warming is real, and has provided studies to support his thesis, including an atmospheric record that reveals that the ten hottest years ever since 1880 have all happened in the last fourteen years and before-after photographs of retreat of glaciers (e.g. Lake Kilimanjaro and glaciers in Argentina and Chile). He also presented how humans have significantly contributed to global warming, citing the increase of carbon dioxide that results to higher temperatures, as brought by emissions from technological inventions that risk the environment in an effort to further innovation. As reflected in the preceding paragraph, Gore indicated that skeptics on global warming act like as if nothing’s happening because it’s inconvenient to embrace the truth. He categorized this more as an moral issue and stated that if we allow the effects of global warming to happen, then it is deeply unethical.
Future is much of concern in An Inconvenient Truth, as much as it is the concern of Al Gore as a person. The film interweaved Gore’s lectures into tidbits of his lives that direct to the issue he’s been tackling: his childhood, his education, his position in the government. In closer look, the film tackles more on the sub-textual disappointment wrapped around Gore’s mission to educate as he recounts himself how many thousands of times he has done the slideshows with the hopes of changing enough minds to treat global warming seriously. The film depicts Gore’s passion as it tries to open doors for possible re-understanding on the issue.
The two films’ take on the effects of global warming is related but differently portrayed. Although Day After Tomorrow has presented a possible scenery in the future, setting it’s milieu in present time makes the film’s science aspect incongruous, not even fitting the facts that was presented in An Inconvenient Truth. Global warming does posit a possibility of temperature drops and climate changes but these don’t happen in as abrupt as they were presented in Day After Tomorrow. Al Gore’s lecture on the effects of global warming is based very much on scientific findings, with much emphasis on a gradual climate change (yet is obviously happening in a faster rate as compared to decades and hundred of years back). Day’s use of science fiction leads to literal fictionalizing of available science and exaggerating facts to fit the formula of what’s exciting and visually impressive, aligning itself to what a disaster movie should be like.
In An Inconvenient Truth, Gore stated that people should know how to react when the leading scientists of the world have already aired a warning on the possible dangers. It quite affirmed my earlier observation that Day’s could pose as a critique against the scientists’ role in the worldwide calamity. Or in another possible note, is this just the filmmaker’s way of masking himself on his ignorance on science to excuse himself in making a possible blockbuster hit?
With such issues like global warming, the film poses as one of the best mediums to educate the public. An Inconvenient Truth is Gore’s slideshows transformed into a film that has basically made easily available to the public. The information revealed in Inconvenient may appear overwhelming and alarming to viewers who don’t really have much understanding on the issue prior to watching it. Day After Tomorrow is a disaster movie that exaggerated and trivialized global warming. Exaggeration turns out to be an essential aspect that could possibly warn viewers for the future but at the same time amaze them with the latest visual effects that in turn will contrast to what it is supposed to prove. There is big line between educating and entertaining, and in watching Day After Tomorrow, no one will leave the theater bruised.
posted by David at 3:39 PM
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